May 12-18, 2005

city beat

ICE Cold

NO SAFE HAVEN: Fleeing oppressive conditions in his native Indonesia in 1999, Tony Sugianto moved his family to South Philadelphia. Today, having been denied asylum, they face possible deportation. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Many Indonesians in Philly face uncertain futures thanks to immigration crackdowns.

by P.J. Tobia

Jill Cheng has a great sense of humor. She can laugh about how hard she has to work to get by, and she can laugh about her boyfriend, whom she loves but who hasn't asked for her hand just yet. She even laughs when she talks about the time federal agents showed up at her house before dawn, put her and her mother in handcuffs and took them both to jail.

"They offered us Dunkin' Donuts coffee," the 22-year-old said, giggling a little. Her brown, almond-shaped eyes shined, and a smile played on her thin lips.

The agents were from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the second-largest police enforcement agency in the nation. They came to Jill's South Philadelphia home last September because she and her mother are immigrants from Indonesia, and ICE had received an order of removal for them. An order of removal is the first step toward deportation. The next stop after jail is an immigration court and, after that, the airport.

This meant that the Chengs' (whose names have been changed to protect their identities) time in the United States was up.

Fortunately for them, ICE got it wrong. The Chengs' attorney had appealed the order of removal months earlier and had received a stay through U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), meaning that the Chengs had a new lease on their American life, but not until after Jill and her mother spent seven hours in a holding cell at the Philadelphia Immigration Center at 16th and Callowhill streets.

Upon their release, they were immediately fitted for house-arrest tracking anklets that they would have to wear for the next few months.

The Chengs are still unsure why they had to wear the anklets, though it is likely because they had not yet received what is called a "full withholding of removal," which would allow them to stay in the country for a few years instead of months.

"When they released us," Jill Cheng said, "they told us, "You were very, very lucky that your attorney called.'"

She wasn't smiling when she said that.

For many of the estimated 6,000 Indonesian immigrants in Philadelphia, one of the city's largest immigrant populations, deportation wouldn't mean a return to poverty, starvation or disease. In fact, many of these immigrants left successful businesses and careers back home. These immigrants have a much more sinister fate awaiting them in Indonesia.

They are ethnic Chinese, meaning that they are targets of violence, crime and hate in their native land. Just seven years ago, native Indonesians turned on the ethnic Chinese in wide-scale riots that were encouraged by the Indonesian government. Human rights groups say that during the chaos more than 1,000 people were massacred — many burned alive — while countless ethnic Chinese women were gang-raped by roving mobs. Ethnic Chinese churches, homes, businesses and schools were looted and burned to the ground as police did nothing or even took part.

More than 100,000 ethnic Chinese fled Indonesia in fear, and thousands ended up in Philadelphia. Most arrived scared and speaking little English, so they didn't file asylum claims. They settled in a quiet section of South Philadelphia around St. Thomas Aquinas Church at 17th and Morris streets, where many of them worship, and flew well under the radar of U.S. immigration authorities. Then came Sept. 11, 2001.

Immigration registration became mandatory for Indonesian men, and Philly's Indonesians had to face a bitter irony. Because they came from a predominantly Muslim country, they were suspects in a newly jittery America. A majority of Philly's Indonesians, however, are Christians who fled their country because they were even more scared of the Muslims than John Ashcroft and the Justice Department.

Now, hundreds of these immigrants are in danger of being deported straight into the arms of those who, they insist, want to destroy them. Their only hope is that the United States government will grant them asylum, allowing them to continue their lives and practice their faith in peace here.

Unfortunately, that hope is slim. Under guidelines enforced post-9/11, an immigrant who wishes to seek asylum must do so within the first year of his or her presence on U.S. soil. Many Indonesian immigrants were unaware of the law. Others relied on fellow Indonesians, who promised to file asylum paperwork on their behalf in exchange for cash, only to take the money and run.

Filing proper paperwork is made more difficult by the wildly shifting landscape of the immigration bureaucracy itself. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, for example, no longer exists. It has been absorbed by the vast Department of Homeland Security, which is now responsible for — among many, many, other things — processing legitimate immigration and asylum cases through USICS and deporting immigration and asylum fakers through ICE. As the Chengs can attest, these two unwieldy bureaucracies do not always work in concert.

A recent Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision could have further devastating consequences for Philadelphia's Indonesian community. In February, the court rejected the asylum claim of a family of ethnic Chinese Christians. According to court records, Imelda Laurencia Lie, her husband, Soyono Liem (in Indonesia couples do not share surnames), and their young son based their asylum claim on the fact that both their home and business were broken into by a gang of native Indonesians who used ethnic slurs — specifically calling them "Chinese pigs."

The original immigration judge thought that the claim had merit and granted asylum status. The Third Circuit Court did not. Although the attacks, which took place in 1997 and 1998, occurred during one of the most violent chapters in Indonesian history, the higher court failed to find that attacks against Chinese Christians in Indonesia constituted a pattern or practice of persecution. (Pattern and practice are the basis for any asylum plea.)

The judgment set a precedent. Lawyers representing Philly's Indonesians have subsequently had asylum claim after asylum claim rejected by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The community is palpably nervous, uncertain and frustrated.

But they are not giving up.

Those who are on the threshold of deportation are fighting hardest, with the help of community leaders, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and even an entire elementary school. Those who, like the Chengs, have been scrutinized by ICE shrug off the indignity, knowing that they have nothing to hide.

"I am not ashamed," Jill Cheng said. "I just want them to know that I followed all the rules."

The ICE office on the fifth floor of the immigration center is stark and unfriendly. The waiting room is perhaps 15 square feet. The bare walls are painted gunmetal gray. On the wall opposite the door is a glass window with a slot for paperwork, like a subway token booth, except no one is behind the window. On either side of the window is a button. Above each button is a small piece of paper reading, "PRESS ONCE!" Under the left button hangs a plaque that says "Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

While this kind of setup is typical of government offices, few government agencies have the power and mandate that ICE wields. With more than 30,000 employees and a budget well over $3.5 billion, it is a behemoth. Created under the USA Patriot Act, ICE's mandate is exceptionally broad, covering everything from border patrols to customs. Its main mission, however, is hunting down illegal aliens. In that regard, ICE has been extremely active in Philadelphia.

On May 2, ICE announced the deportation of 232 immigrants from Pennsylvania, 181 of whom had criminal convictions. Many of these immigrants are rounded up in weekly pre-dawn raids that have contributed to a climate of fear in the Indonesian community.

Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for ICE, points out that foreigners who exploit our immigration system hurt those who make the effort to stay here legally. "There are many immigrants who come here and live out the American dream legally. Illegal immigrants jump to the head of the line," he says.

Though ICE wouldn't comment on deportations, their activities in Philadelphia have local Indonesians on edge.

On the third Sunday of April, in the basement of St. Thomas Aquinas Elementary School, hundreds of Philly's Indonesians gathered to discuss their options. Their voices, full of worry and frustration, bounced off the mint-green cinderblock walls. It created a chattering cacophony of tense emotion. They sat in groups of 10 or 15, venting to each other, and it seemed as if some had been waiting a long time to speak their mind and get some answers.

One young woman unleashed a torrent of words that tumbled out in a long, single, unpunctuated sentence:

"Applying for asylum is like you have to put a lot of money for lawyers out sometimes ridiculous amounts of money we try to do the best we can to tell the truth we state how we have been treated unfairly but basically it's just like a strange play they feel like, "Look I don't want to give you asylum,' I mean, whatever we try, we cry and it's not gonna do any good."

She had not even been asked a question.

With so much about their future here unknown and unknowable, rumor spreads through the community.

"People talk about there being ICE raids," said Peter, one of a group of Indonesian volunteers at the Aquinas Elementary meeting to facilitate the discussion and offer advice. "They say, "Oh, this month, stay tuned, there's going to be a big roundup of immigrants,' but then it doesn't happen [when we think it will]."

Behind all this frustration and uncertainty is the visceral desire to avoid a return to their homeland. This desire has driven the Indonesians to avoid any contact with immigration authorities. Some even forego legitimate asylum claims altogether.

The quietest table by far at the Aquinas Elementary discussion was a group of a dozen women, many of them elderly. They sat in silence amidst the surrounding clamor. Occasionally, a child would squirm onto one of their laps before running to play under the folding tables.

BY THEIR SIDE: Father Asanto Ali helps local Indonesians prove they are Catholic, a distinction that can help them avoid deportation. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

"They decided that they didn't want to apply for asylum," said Elina, a 31-year-old volunteer who did not want her last name used, of the women sitting at that table. "They heard that if you apply for asylum, you lose your rights and they send you home. They are afraid."

Elina knows their fear and to some extent shares it. Elina is a dark-featured woman with round cheeks and a pointy chin. Both she and her husband have degrees in civil engineering. They both wait tables at a cafe in the Italian Market.

"A lot of people left everything there to come here," she said without a trace of irony. One of the things that she left behind was the grave of her younger brother. He was killed by the police after a routine ID check. Indonesian IDs state the bearer's religion. He was Catholic.

"After he died," Elina said, "I applied for asylum."

That was before 9/11, and her claim was accepted.

Elina's story is not unique. In 1997, when the Indonesian economy began to skid, civic anger and protests were directed at the minority group. It wasn't until 1998, however, that events would converge to create a perfect storm of hate for Indonesia's ethnic Chinese. In that year, the 32-year rule of President Suharto came to an end, creating a violent power struggle. What was left of Indonesia's economy collapsed, and a drought struck the country's rural provinces. Indonesians took to the streets en masse, often targeting the ethnic Chinese who, though only 3 percent of the population, were the country's major creditors. In the ensuing violence, thousands of ethnic Chinese were killed or maimed.

According to human rights groups, as many as 200 women — though this number is disputed — were sexually assaulted in one city alone in what has come to be known as the "Mass Rape of 1998."

This cultural division predates even the colonial period of the 1900s, when the Dutch who controlled Indonesia favored the ethnic Chinese, giving them land, titles and control over various means of production.

This, of course, created a huge rift in a relationship already troubled by differences in religion and heritage.

Suspicion and even outright hatred for ethnic Chinese in Indonesia grew along with their influence in Indonesian industry and academic life.

This has led some to label the nation's ethnic Chinese as "the Jews of Indonesia."

After a failed communist coup in 1965, mistrust of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia became nearly total. Thousands of ethnic Chinese were slaughtered in the government backlash. Ethnic Chinese were prohibited from government jobs, and laws banning Chinese names and the teaching of Chinese in schools were enacted.

Tempers have cooled a bit since 1998, but Philly's Indonesians insist that it is only a matter of time before another round of ethnic cleansing engulfs their homeland. Last October, Indonesian news sources reported on a proposed new law that would give native Indonesians lower loan interest rates than the Chinese. When ethnic Chinese business groups cried foul, Muslim Vice President Jusuf Kalla reportedly asked, "Would you [ethnic Chinese] choose to be discriminated against or would you prefer to be burned out and hunted down?"

Henny Sugianto, her husband, Tony, and their daughters, Angelina, 7, and Nikita, 4, all of South Philadelphia, may soon be forced to return to this inhospitable climate because of heightened enforcement of immigration laws post-9/11.

After fleeing Indonesia in early 1999, the family landed in Philadelphia and Tony found work at a dry cleaner. Soon after, Nikita was born. They are like any American family. They live in a small home on Watkins Street in South Philadelphia. Henny is a housewife, and she keeps the home and her little girls neat.

Soon after arriving, Henny began the process of applying for asylum. She hired an Indonesian woman named Liana to help process her forms. Henny paid cash, but, she says, Liana never did the job.

"I paid her $1,500 for nothing," she said, her black hair brushing her shoulder as she shook her head at the memory. On the couch next to her, Nikki napped fitfully in an oversized T-shirt. "She told me she would prepare our application and mail it, but for almost a year I didn't receive anything."

By the time Henny realized she'd been robbed, "It was too late," she said. Soon after, a letter arrived from the U.S. government requesting that Tony go to the immigration center at 1600 Callowhill St. — the same place where the Chengs were taken — to register with immigration authorities because Indonesia was on the State Department's terrorist watch list.

Indonesia was red-flagged for good reason. Many in the State Department think the country is a nest of Muslim extremism. In October 2002, terrorists affiliated with the Muslim radical group Jemaah Islamiah detonated a bomb on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, killing 202 people. Since then there has been a series of terrorist attacks within Indonesia, including an explosion at a luxury hotel in August 2003 that killed 12 and a suicide bombing last September that killed nine.

Events such as these were the reason that most of Philly's Indonesian men were getting the same letter from the government. Many responded with wary obedience.

"The Indonesian community had one of the largest registration rates in the country," says Judith Bernstein-Baker, an immigration lawyer and executive director of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and Council Migration Service of Philadelphia, a Jewish nonprofit representing immigrants and refugees with asylum claims. "They wanted to do the right thing."

So, like hundreds of others, Tony, who speaks little English, registered with immigration authorities.

"But," Henny now says, "it was like a trap for us."

Within a year, she and her husband were turned down for asylum by every government organ that had the power to grant it, with the exception of the two highest courts in the land. Part of the reason for this, according to Bernstein-Baker, is because they did not apply within one year of arriving in the U.S.

The U.S. Attorney's Office, Department of Justice and ICE all refused to comment on any aspect of the asylum claims made by Philly's Indonesians or the possibility that deporting these people could put them in harm's way. Each office gave an identical response: All asylum claims are matters between the individual asylum applicant and the U.S. government.

As Henny Sugianto and her family have realized, however, trying to do things by the book can have a significant downside.

"I'm in my fourth appeal right now," she said, as Angelina woke up with a gurgle and tugged sleepily at her mother's arm. She claims that the process has cost her over $6,000 in private attorney fees thus far. "If this appeal is denied I will have to appeal."

A federal appeal would send her to the Third Circuit, which has used last February's landmark decision as a guideline in such cases. What's more, that case has had a cascading effect on lower court judges, who are loath to have their rulings overturned.

Henny is unbowed by the process, drawing strength from the help of her community.

Angelina attends the Independence Charter School in Center City. On an April morning, Jurate Krokys, the school principal, stood in front of a classroom of fifth graders and explained in a surprisingly succinct way the complex market pressures that led to the last round of ethnic cleansing in Indonesia: "One day they had an economic problem and everything became expensive and some people started thinking, "I bet it's those ethnic Chinese store owners that are making our country bad!' And so a bunch of people got really mad at anyone who was ethnic Chinese."

After the lesson Krokys showed the students how to write a letter to Sens. Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter on behalf of Angelina's family. With the help of teachers and parents, she hopes to send 2,000 letters.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has also come to the defense of Philly's Indonesians. When the government asked Indonesian men to register, Catholic priests and sisters accompanied many of them to registration interviews.

"We wanted to let them know that the church was present for them," said the Rev. William Ayres, director of the archdiocese's Office for Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees. "It's sometimes an uphill battle, but we are doing what we can to help the people be here in safety, legally."

At the Sugianto home on Watkins Street one day in mid-April, the warm red light of evening began to fill the living room, and Niki was fully awake. She stood on the couch, her smooth, brown face smiling and silent.

"I want to stay here for my daughters' future," Henny said, as Tony scooped the little girl up and sat down with her. "I feel that my daughters will be safe here because there is no discrimination."

Soon, Angelina came down the stairs, and then both girls were on Tony's lap, each perched on a leg. Tony smiled as he held his girls, and Henny wiped her eyes and looked at Angelina.

"She's been going to school here since she was 2 and a half, so she doesn't know the Indonesian language. I told her that she was born in Indonesia, but her sister was born in the U.S.A., so her sister is American and she is Indonesian." Henny laughed and so did the girls.

"But when I say that [Angelina] always says, "No, I can speak English. I'm an American, too.'"